There is this story that “pain is a pathway to peace.”  Does that mean that I should always struggle?  Do I always need to choose the harder trek on rocks and ice, wide rivers and dark jungles?  Can’t I choose paths with blue sky sunshine green open fields all the time?  If I do choose an easier, softer Way, is that avoidance, denial or self-care?

Am I just used to trauma and drama, or can I just let stormy weather happen without judgment or running to the middle of the twister?

Do birds have paths?  And what about those who carve the paths?  Do they see a way or do they just charge into a forest blindly, hoping for a clearing on the other side?  Are they always seeking a passage to the east?  Or do they just relish in pushing through valleys of thorns?

How do you find a path in a wall of rock?  Why traverse a landscape without handholds?  What is it up there that sings you to it?

What if the earth quakes open and I lose my way?  What if the landscape is completely upside down, the river flows upstream and the sun rises in the north?

I still hear the blackbird call and let the compass inside my heart settle, pointing to the magnetic center within me.  I watch blade of grass or a sapling–they do not lose their way.  They stretch and bend up and out.  Rocks–tumbling, crashing, or still for eons–are in the Way forever.

Is it the human way to see this so clearly yet stand numb and befuddled on the path with a story of loss, confusion and pain?  Is that just our Way?

And what if there are no answers, just a game of more and more laughable questions?